Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders (23 page)

‘I think Simon Jerold was quite pleased to be taken by surprise.'

‘He's a client. Clients are different. But my advice to you, sir,' it was the first time my clerk had called me ‘sir' and it made me feel as though I had grown up at last, but his next piece of advice put me back in the junior league, ‘when you see Mr Wystan now, I would advise you not to exaggerate the part you played in
R
. v.
Jerold
.'

‘Exaggerate!' I have to say that by now Albert Handyside, for all his long experience of the law, was starting to irritate me. ‘Can you exaggerate the part played by Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? He's not just a spear carrier, after all, is he?'

‘I don't think,' Albert looked at me as though I were still a white wig who had much to learn, ‘that you'll find that Mr Wystan has any great interest in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.'

On this point, I was to discover, Albert had got it absolutely right. But my interview with C. H. Wystan took a course which came, I have to confess, as a complete surprise to me.

 

‘Sit you down, Rumpole. I must say, you were a considerable help on
R
. v.
Jerold
.'

‘You mean, I was a considerable help to Simon? You might even say I saved his life.' Wystan's greeting had been curiously friendly, but I was still convinced he was going to announce my eviction from the sacred precincts of Equity Court.

‘I mean,' Hilda's daddy was leaning back comfortably in his chair, his fingertips pressed together as though as an aid to deep thought, ‘you were not only a help to the client, Rumpole. You were a considerable help to me. As you know, I had other commitments which prevented me from leading you, as I wished to do, for the greater part of the trial.'

‘“Other commitments”, was it? I thought you were sacked for useless inactivity quite early in the proceedings, ' was what I didn't say. I was astonished at the way my ex-leader could rewrite history. What I actually said was, ‘Oh, of course, other commitments,' hoping at least that my tone of voice would make it clear that no commitment could be more important than a young man on trial for his life.

‘That is the general impression around the Temple,' he assured me, and although I thought the general impression around the Temple must be pretty silly, I didn't say so.

‘That having been said,' Wystan's fingertips were still pressed together so his hands resembled a church roof, ‘you managed to produce a successful result.'

‘Let's say I was lucky.' I remembered Albert's advice and my ex-leader looked suitably grateful.

‘Luck of course played the greater part in it. Apart from that, I have to say that your cross-examination of the chief prosecution witness invited criticism. To accuse a witness of murder on what seemed to be pretty slender evidence is not, Rumpole, in the finest traditions of the bar.'

‘Perhaps not.'

‘You were lucky that the Lord Chief allowed it.'

‘Extremely lucky,' I had to admit.

‘It's not the sort of thing a leading barrister would do.'

‘Bloody lucky there wasn't a leading barrister around, then,' was what I didn't say. Instead I pointed out that my questions had caused Peter Benson to do a runner.

‘Do a runner? Really, Rumpole, your language has been infected by the criminal practice you seem determined to pursue.'

As ‘doing a runner' was clearly unacceptable, I gave Wystan a truncated quotation from
The Tempest
which seemed to stop the man dead in his tracks:

 

‘Well, yes. I suppose so.' Wystan coughed and turned with relief to another topic. ‘There is something else we have to discuss.'

‘I know.' I wasn't prepared to argue. Perhaps a ‘fun chambers' with Teddy Singleton would be a good idea. ‘I know I've got to leave Uncle Tom's room as the case is over. I should be able to find somewhere now.'

‘No, it's not that.' He sounded impatient. ‘It's not that at all. I've just had a long conversation with Hilda.'

‘Hilda?'

‘My daughter, Hilda. Of course, I've known all about it for a long time.'

‘All about what exactly?'

‘What was going on.' He was growing impatient, as though I was being unusually dense. ‘It seems that you two reached an agreement when Hilda joined you for breakfast at a café in Fleet Street.'

‘The Tastee Bite?'

‘Is it? I don't know the name.'

The famous breakfast eatery was only about fifty yards from the entrance of Equity Court, but C. H. Wystan had never dropped in for a couple of eggs and a fried slice. But what was the exact significance of my encounter with Hilda there? I asked for further and better particulars. ‘You say we reached an agreement?'

‘Well, you know what happened better than I do, Rumpole. You agreed that any sort of . . .' Here he searched for a word and at last settled for, ‘
familiarity
between you should be postponed until you were legally married. That was a correct and proper decision, and of course I commend you for it. I'm afraid it's not always so with young couples nowadays.'

‘Married? Did you say married?'

‘Well, of course. What else could you have been discussing?'

‘Nothing. No, of course not, absolutely nothing.' How extraordinary it was, I thought, that the purchase of three rubber johnnies before dinner with Daisy Sampson should have such far-reaching results.

‘My daughter, Hilda,' C. H. Wystan was summing up the situation, ‘is strong-minded and usually persuasive. You may well find, Rumpole, in what I hope will turn out to be a happy future for both of you, that when Hilda has made up her mind to such and such a thing, it usually happens.'

‘I imagine,' I told him, ‘that might be so.'

‘It is so, Rumpole. So Hilda has persuaded me that you should remain with us here, at Equity Court, as a member of the family!'

‘If I could have a little time to think about it . . .' I began, but our Head of Chambers was against any form of adjournment.

‘I'm sure you've thought about it, Rumpole, long and hard. And now, dear boy, to celebrate our entirely new relationship, what about a glass of sherry?'

My heart sank as he approached the dusty decanter in the corner cupboard. This again was an offer I felt I could not decently refuse.

25

‘Daddy agreed, Rumpole. I talked him into it!'

We were in the Temple gardens. Hilda had come in to me as soon as I had repossessed Uncle Tom's room and suggested we go into the gardens, where no one would overhear us and start talking. The leaves were gently turning to gold and the chrysanthemums were still out and the roses starting to fade. I wasn't whooping or doing a wild triumphal dance and the windows of the surrounding chambers remained shut. But I was still euphoric after winning the case alone and without a leader, as I shall always claim, in spite of C. H. Wystan's attempts to get in on the act.

We enjoyed a period of silence and then I said, ‘Your father seems to be discussing marriage.' It sounded stupid as I said it. I would have to have been deaf and blind not to understand what C. H. Wystan was talking about.

‘You've got it, Rumpole!' Hilda was laughing as though my slowness in the uptake was nothing but a joke.

‘My marriage to you?' I ventured.

‘Well, I don't know who else would want to marry you. I shouldn't think that Daisy Sampson's particularly keen on it, is she?'

‘No, I don't think she's particularly keen.'

‘Then you did well to propose to me.'

She was in the jolliest of moods, with a broad grin, shining eyes and a voice full of enthusiasm. I didn't want to spoil the moment for her, but I felt I had to ask her to remind me, ‘When did I propose exactly?'

‘When we were having breakfast. Don't you remember? And you told me we shouldn't use those things until we were married.'

‘I said that?' I was still puzzled.

‘I think winning
R
. v.
Jerold
has been too much for you.' Hilda looked at me judicially. ‘I think the excitement has blotted out bits of your memory.
Of course
you said that. Anyway, I understood exactly what you meant when you said it.'

‘Did you, Hilda?'

‘And I gave it a lot of serious thought. Of course I realized you're young and inexperienced and you could probably be quite irritating. But then I remembered all the time and trouble I'd invested in you.'

‘Time and trouble?'

‘Of course. Who got the junior brief for you in
R
. v.
Jerold
? Who cheered you up from the public gallery? Who praised your talent for cross-examination? And who told Daddy to keep you in chambers because I knew I could make something of you? Daddy said you were now one of the family. He wasn't wrong, was he, Rumpole?' I was still in a high mood after Simon's acquittal and I felt the world was open to me. Hilda was quite right, she had supported me all along and she was unaccountably anxious to spend her life with Rumpole. There seemed to be no particular reason why a brave new world shouldn't have a marriage in it.

‘Well, Rumpole?' The young Hilda looked as if, at that moment, she was about to have a fit of the giggles. ‘I ask you again. What've you got to say for yourself?'

‘There is a tide in the affairs of men,' I told her, ‘which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Rumpole! Talk sense! Don't just show me you know your Keats.'

‘It's not Keats. It's
Julius Caesar
.'

‘Well, whatever it is, tell me what you think?'

‘I think we might as well get married,' was what I didn't say. ‘Well, yes, Hilda. Of course.'

‘Oh, Rumpole! I'm sure I can make something of you.'

And with that, she threw her arms around me and gave me the sort of approving but not yet sensual kiss of those, at that time, who were now officially engaged.

 

‘Now we come to number six on the agenda.' Luci Gribble, the person responsible for our chambers' image and administration, read it out at another chambers meeting. ‘The question of the use of chambers rooms to deal with accessing accommodation in the workplace outwith its legitimate usage for targeting a successful, money-wise profession at the bar.'

‘Perhaps you'd like to speak to that, Rumpole?' Soapy Sam Ballard was once again in charge of the meeting, during which Luci Gribble frequently referred to him as ‘Chair'. Indeed, he had all the charisma and sense of fun of an article of furniture.

‘What do you want me to say to it, Ballard? Except for the fact that it's a complete insult to the tongue that Shakespeare spake.'

‘That item was put on the agenda because it came to my attention that you were using your room in chambers, and the heating and light provided -'

‘Not to mention the coffee,' Claude butted in, unnecessarily I thought.

‘Not to mention the coffee provided, very reasonably at cost. Thank you, Erskine-Brown. You were using the room, Rumpole, for a private purpose, completely unconnected with your practice at the bar.'

‘What on earth do you mean by a private purpose? I haven't been using my room for a strip show, or devil worship or calling up the spirits of long-dead barristers. I've been writing an important chapter of legal history. You're only annoyed because you thought I hadn't written about you. I told you there was a reference to you.'

‘You said a
passing
reference, Rumpole.'

‘That was what annoyed you, wasn't it? Well, let me tell you, I compared you to none other than the famous C. H. Wystan, our Head of Chambers in the days gone by.'

‘You compared me to him?' Ballard seemed somewhat mollified.

‘He was also my father-in-law during the course of his long and not unhappy life. His conduct at the bar put me in the way of my greatest success.'

‘You mean you learned from him, Rumpole?'

‘Several important lessons.'

‘And you've learned from me, I hope.'

‘As my Head of Chambers, you are almost exactly like C. H. Wystan.'

‘And you made that clear in your writing?'

‘Crystal clear. Anyway, my memoirs are now completed.'

‘In that case,' Sam Ballard gave me a particularly soapy smile, ‘I think we might pass on to item number seven on the agenda.'

‘Pass on to it,' I gave him permission, ‘and let the world know exactly what happened at the Penge bungalows on that extraordinary and fatal night.'

 

After the chambers meeting, Erskine-Brown came up to me in the corridor to apologize. ‘Was it a bit mean of me to mention about the coffee?'

‘You have a mean streak, Erskine-Brown,' was what I felt I had to tell him.

‘I'm sorry, Rumpole. I'm not quite myself today. Lala Ingolsby spoke to me.'

‘Amazing!' I agreed. ‘What did she have to say?'

‘That she's marrying a fellow called Gunnersbury who practises in the Chancery Division.'

‘Cheer up. They're not all bad in the Chancery Division.'

‘No, but it was the sad way she said it, Rumpole, and the sad look she gave me. No doubt at all she had still hoped we could somehow get together. But it couldn't be, Rumpole. It could never, ever be!'